


The Fabric Between Us

by ScxrletWxdow



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: First Times, Fluffy, M/M, Smut, Wartime, the Howling Commandos, the howlies, there is so much fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-15
Updated: 2019-09-17
Packaged: 2020-10-19 04:42:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20651381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScxrletWxdow/pseuds/ScxrletWxdow
Summary: “We have a hydra base that is 16 miles north from here. We need to hit it and hit it hard.” He looks around at all his men while pointing at the map and guiding where they are to go. “Supposedly there are weapons that are extremely dangerous in that compound and we need to get them and destroy them” Steve quickly finishes up with how they’re going to go about infiltrating the building.Bucky is with Steve, as he always is and they’re making the main assault. Steve took Bucky where ever he could with him. Everyone thought it was so he could protect Bucky, but Steve really felt safer when Bucky was with him. Let that be for his own safety or for Bucky’s, either way he preferred it that way.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my return to writing, I apologize if the grammar is all screwed or the POV is a bit fucky. I tried to edit it, but I gave up in the end. Enjoy!

“Get down!” Steve yells over the deafening sound of German artillery going overhead and landing around them. He watches as the Howlies and other troops run to cover. As a young soldier was trying to run to safety, a shell landed near him, throwing him a couple feet over. Steve watches as the young kid’s lifeless body laid there. 

Death never really affected Steve in a big way. Of course he got upset when he saw his men die, the men he is to be in charge of, but this death hit him hard. The kid who laid there, dead and covered in his own blood, looked like him when he joined up. Scrawny, blonde kid, where his uniform hung abnormally off his small frame. 

The shelling quickly came to an end and the men around him began retreating from their safe coverings. A medic ran up to the kid on the ground and began to drag his body off to the side. 

“You good, Cap?” A familiar voice comes from behind him. He quickly turns around with a stony look on his face, masking any emotion he was feeling. As he turns he is met with his best friend’s dirtied face, wearing the signature smirk.

“All good, Buck” throwing his hand on his shoulder with a tight squeeze to let him know he really was okay.

“Alright boys! We gotta stay focused..” Steve quickly falls back into his roll. Commanding large groups of men was never somewhere Steve saw himself. He really faked it until he made it, now he can command a large group of men as if he was born to do it. Many would say it is what he was born to do, but Steve wasn’t so sure.

“Gather ‘round, men, we’ve got orders” Steve quickly announces. The Howlies fill in right beside him while the other soldiers circle up around them, trying to catch what ever is being said.

“We have a hydra base that is 16 miles north from here. We need to hit it and hit it hard.” He looks around at all his men while pointing at the map and guiding where they are to go. “Supposedly there are weapons that are extremely dangerous in that compound and we need to get them and destroy them” Steve quickly finishes up with how they’re going to go about infiltrating the building.

Bucky is with Steve, as he always is and they’re making the main assault. Steve took Bucky where ever he could with him. Everyone thought it was so he could protect Bucky, but Steve really felt safer when Bucky was with him. Let that be for his own safety or for Bucky’s, either way he preferred it that way.

“10 minutes till we’re on the move. Grab extra ammo, water, whatever you can” Steve gave the final command and then turned to Bucky.

“Yes, sir” Bucky mocked Steve, wearing a shit eating grin on his face. Bucky’s face was speckled with dark earth from all the shellings around them. His blue eyes broke through the dark contrast.

“Oh fuck off” Steve jokes and shoves Bucky. “Thanks for always having my back”

“Of course, till the end of the line” Bucky bumps his fist against Steve’s.

-

“Alright, we do this as quickly as we can. Bucky, you’re with me” Steve quickly goes over the operation and positions of the men. “Be careful, boys. Fall out”

Steve and Bucky quickly head to they front doors and wait for the men assigned to toss smoke grenades through the windows, to give them their mark. As soon as the men toss the grenades through the window, Cap kicks open the door, he heads in with Bucky in tow.

Bullets whiz by their head as they take cover. Steve rushes men with his shield and makes sure he takes them down for good. At first, Steve didn’t like killing, but he quickly realized it was either them or him. The rest of the men assigned to help infiltrate the building quickly file in, shooting the Hydra agents in front of them. 

Steve approaches a lab door, pushing it open. As soon as he has the door open a bullet goes right through the meat of his shoulder. “Ah, Shit!” Rushing the man, Steve makes sure there is no one else in the lab area. 

“Steve!” Bucky shouts, worried about Steve being shot. He quickly rushes over to Steve to tend to his wound. Everything has settled down as the men have finished taking out the Hydra agents in the facility. 

“I’m fine, Buck. Nothing that time can’t fix” Steve chuckles to Bucky’s displeasure. Bucky is ultimately worried about Steve. To him, Steve is still the scrawny kid back in Brooklyn. He seriously has no idea why Steve is here risking his life, when Steve could’ve been back home waiting for him. Bucky just wants Steve to be safe. He couldn’t fair if he lost Steve.

“Thanks, pal” Steve smiles as Bucky finishes applying the dressing.

-

The crackling of the fire is comforting to Steve. The Howlies all sit around the campfire, trading stories of the day. Bucky is still hounding Steve because of his wound today. Steve can take a lot and be totally fine, but it doesn't mean that he doesn’t feel the effect of what has happened to him. 

“How’s the shoulder doing, Cap?” Dum-Dum asks the tall blonde. 

“It’s alright, sore, but its about what you’d expect if you got one in the shoulder” Steve chuckles, leaning back against the tree he is sat up against as the exhaustion sets in.

“How long till it’s healed up, do you think, Cap?” Gabe asks as he reaches over for the bottle of whisky. 

“Ehh.. it should be pretty well off tomorrow morning, really” Steve responds sleepily, his eyes shut. Steve can feel sleep wanting to take over his body.

“Alright boys, I’m going to head off to bed, try to rest this damn shoulder” Cap grunts in pain as he stands up from his previous position. “You guys should get some rest too. We’ve got a big day tomorrow, I believe”

Steve heads to the tent that he is sharing with Bucky. Bucky is already passed out in his cot on the right side of the tent. He heads over to his cot to get himself ready to sleep. He slides off his shirt, wanting to evaluate how bad off his bullet hole is. He walks over to the small mirror that is hanging off a nail in one of the wood frames. 

Peeling back his gauze, he sees that his wound is almost completely healed. The bullet hole is substantially smaller than what it was earlier. Steve is so thankful that the serum took away all his ailments that he had prior, but it also made his healing factor so much faster and it is one of the best things to come out of his transformation. 

He hears footsteps approach behind him, quickly turning around, he sees a groggy Bucky walking up to him with a smirk on his face.

“Wow, I constantly forget how much the serum changed you” Bucky teases as he traces some of the muscle lines on Steve’s back, causing goosebumps to ripple up his body.

“Yea, I don’t look like a 12 year old anymore. Maybe the dames will finally look at me, huh?” Steve joked, earning a soft chuckle from Bucky. 

“You didn’t need the serum to do that, pal. You already had all eyes on you” 

“Yea, but those eyes on me were all in disgust at how fuckin’ scrawny I was”

“Nah, those bright blue eyes had people chatting up and down about how pretty they are. Glad to see you didn’t lose those, huh” Bucky prods carefully at the mostly sealed up wound. Steve hisses when he hit an especially tender spot. 

“Shit, shit sorry, pal” Bucky retracts his hand as if he had gotten burned. 

“It’s alright” Steve turns to face his best friend. Bucky has his underwear on and his loose t-shirt that goes under his uniform. “Wanna help me clean it?” Steve holds out the gauze pad with alcohol on it.

“Sure” Bucky grabs the items and begins to work on getting the dried blood off of Steve’s skin. As he gets closer to the actual wound, he makes lighter strokes, making sure to not hurt his best friend.

“You can go harder if you need to. I only reacted last time because I wasn’t expecting it. I’m fine, Buck” Steve reassures Bucky. The dark haired man started pushing a bit harder, really trying to get the dried blood off of Steve’s pale skin.

Once Bucky was done, he tossed the bloodied gauze into the trash can, next to where they were standing. “There you go, all clean. I’m always cleaning your wounds up, huh, Stevie?” Bucky chuckles, bumping his shoulder to Steve’s

“Yea, I guess so. The difference now is that I can actually handle myself in a fight, but generally a bullet wins a fight” Steve laughs, earning a laugh from Bucky. 

They both head off to their respective sides of the tent and crawl into bed. “Good night, Buck” 

“Good night, Stevie”


	2. Chapter 2

“Buck, It’s time to get up” Steve groggily nudges his best friend, trying to wake him up so they can get going on the mission for today. Bucky, still half asleep, tries to hit at Steve.  
“Fuck off, I wanna sleep” Bucky groans. 

“Nope, gotta get up” Steve yanks the pillow from beneath his head and hits Bucky with it. Groaning in protest, Bucky lunges at Steve, tackling him to the ground.

“You’re such a dick, y’know that, right?” Bucky is straddling Steve, with a playful look in his eyes. Bucky quickly grabs the pillow that was used to hit him in the face and starts smacking Steve with it. Both of the large men start laughing and play fighting. Steve quickly gets a leg up on Bucky and starts tickling him, causing Bucky to thrash around on the tent floor.

“Alright! Alright! I surrender!” Bucky yells through his laughter. Steve lets up and rolls off of him, standing up.

“Alright, go get ready, meet us out there in five” and with that, Steve exits the tent, leaving Bucky panting on the floor.

Bucky loved Steve in every way imaginable, let that be his scrawny ass, or him as bulky, Captain America. He loved him no matter what, he was his best pal, but when they play fight, he gets butterflies in his stomach and it instantly takes him back to when they used to play fight in Steve’s apartment as kids.

Of course, he would have to let Steve win at times, but it would make the skinny blonde all angry because he never liked it when Bucky let him win, it made him feel smaller than he already did. No matter how much Bucky tried to persuade him that he did win on his own, he wasn’t taking it. 

Bucky quickly pushes the thoughts out of his head before he has a bigger problem on his hands than just being late. He stands up and gets himself dressed. He picks up his weapon and heads out of the tent to meet the rest of the guys. He spots all the Howlies standing in a circle, but he doesn’t see Steve. A small bit of panic rises up, but pushes that down, knowing Steve can handle himself.

“Morning, boys. Where is Steve?” Bucky approaches them

“Phillips radioed and called him to his tent” Morita fills him in.

“Oh, is everything alright?” Bucky pushes the panic out of his voice

“Yea, just wanted to brief him, I guess” Gabe jumps in

Bucky nods his head to that and picks up the coffee cup that Dernier is handing him. 

The men turn their heads to the sound of a jeep approaching. It comes to a stop and Steve hops out with Phillips in tow. Steve is extremely hard to miss with his uniform. All the men put down their cups and salute Phillips. 

“At ease, men” Phillips calls out. All the Howlies drop their salutes and pick up their cups again. Bucky is incredibly curious to as what is going on.

“Boys, our mission has been cancelled for today” Steve begins and the men all smile finally happy to have a day off.

“But, we’re to train today on our rifles and PT” he continues, eliciting a groan from Dum-Dum. Looks like they aren’t getting a day off they all hoped for. Phillips turns back to his jeep and hops in. It quickly turns around and heads off.

“Of course on the one day we could’ve had a day off, we had to do fucking training” Dum-Dum mumbles harshly, loud enough that the rest of the Howlies can still hear what he said.  
“What’s his problem? as long as we don’t have to go out and track down more goons, I’m happy to train” Dernier tries to have them look on the brighter side even though it doesn’t do much good since only Gabe, and Cap speak French. Bucky knows enough to bed a dame, but that’s about it. Gabe was Dernier’s translator for the rest of the men.

“He said he’s just looking forward to the training as long as he gets a day off from chasing down Hydra goons” Gabe quickly translates, leaving out the part where he was chastising Dum-Dum.  
“Alright guys, training is at 1200 hours. Get your shit and let’s go” Cap calls out, dismissing his men to go get their gear. Bucky walks up to Steve with a confused look on his face.  
“What happened to the mission, Stevie?” Bucky asks, shouldering his rifle. 

“I asked for a day off and this is the best I could do. We’ve been chasing Hydra men non-stop for a couple of weeks, I thought a break could do us good.” Steve explains to his best friend.  
As he looks at Bucky’s face he could tell he was exhausted. Dark circles outlined his eyes, clearly identifying that he was beyond tired. He also had a scrape on his left cheek bone from getting into hand-to-hand with a Hydra agent. Bucky quickly took him down, but still got some bruises. His bright blue eyes were his most noticeable feature. 

“Oh, thanks pal, it means a lot to us even if we seem a bit upset. We’re just tired, but hey, this means I get to wrestle you again.” Bucky smirks, earning a light punch to his shoulder from his best friend. 

“Until the end of the line” Steve holds up his fist

“Until the end of the line” Bucky first bumps Steve. Saying until the end of the line was their way of saying “I love you”. It had been a thing since Steve was 13 and Bucky was 14. 

-

“Sergeant Barnes and Captain Rogers, you’re up!” Falsworth calls out to the two best friends. They were all doing hand-to-hand combat training and now it was Steve and Bucky’s turn. Nobody but Bucky was willing to go up against Steve even if they all knew Steve wouldn’t put all his strength into it. Both the men took to the middle of the circle and shook hands quickly. Everyone knew they weren’t going to train in the traditional way, but more launch at each other and see who can pin who down.

“Go!” Calls out the Brit

Bucky and Steve began circling each other, jokingly lunging at each other to sike out the other until Steve goes for it and wraps his arms around Bucky’s waist, taking him to the ground. Bucky lands with a hard thud, but he kept going. Bucky manages to flip Steve on his back and he tries to pin him, but Steve is incredibly strong and quickly overpowers Bucky. All the men around the two guys wrestling are yelling and whistling, chanting either Rogers or Barnes. 

Steve drowns out the chanting and it quickly took him back to being a kid and play fighting with Bucky. Now he actually has a chance to take down Bucky where as he used to never be able to win on his own. He had Bucky’s arms pinned down and he was straddling his hips, keeping him from moving, but he quickly realizes what position they are in and the butterflies kick in.  
“Time!” Falsworth calls out. “The winner is, Captain Rogers!” 

Steve rolls off of Bucky and lays down beside him. He looks over at Bucky and Bucky does the same. As soon as the two men meet eyes, the break out in a laughter, unable to control it. Bucky gets up first and offers a hand to Steve. Steve takes up the offer and lets Bucky help him up off the ground.

“Good fight, Barnes” Steve smiles

“Always a pleasure, Rogers” Bucky returns the smile and then joins the Howlies.

-

All the men sit around a fire that Morita got started up. They’re shooting the shit and trading stories from the day.

“Jesus H. Christ, I know why you’re the sniper for the Commando’s, Barnes” Dum-Dum praises Bucky.

“Thanks” He smiles at Dum-Dum. Bucky turns to Dernier and gestures to the bottle of whiskey being passed around. Dernier hands it to him and Bucky takes a swig. Everyone was sharing the bottle except Steve because he feels no need in drinking since he can’t even get drunk and why waste the booze.

“It was fun to kick your ass today, Buck” Steve chuckles and smirks at Bucky

“You did not! I just let you win for old times sake” Bucky shot back

“Oh no, I’m pretty sure I just kicked your ass”

“Mhm, sure” and with that Bucky took another swig and passed the bottle to Morita.

Steve looks at his watch and saw that it was getting pretty late. “Boys, it’s getting pretty late, we should dig in, who knows what’s in store for us tomorrow” Steve pushes himself up off the log he was sitting on and heads towards the tent him and Bucky share. He hears the rest of the men start towards their cots too. Steve steps into the tent and begins to take his gear off. Bucky steps into the tent and is greeted by the sight of Steve standing in his skivvies with his back towards Bucky.

Bucky can’t help but notice the muscle stretched across his large frame. It ripples everytime Steve moves and Bucky is enraptured with the way his best friend looks.

He pulls himself out of the trance that he was in and clears his throat “Stevie, just for the record, I totally would kick your ass in a fight, I was just tired today”

Steve snorts in response “sure”

Bucky walks up to Steve, drags a finger up a line of muscle on Steve’s back and watches the goosebumps form under his touch.

“What’s up Buck?” Steve turns to face his best guy

“N-nothing” Buck steps back and retreats quickly before he does something stupid. He gets out of his gear and into a shirt and his skivvies. He hears Steve’s cot groan in protest to his weight, alerting Bucky that he’s now in bed. He follows suit, slipping into his cot.

“G’night Stevie”

“G’night Buck”


End file.
